Anthropology of Homosexuality (ANT 3710.20)
SUNY Purchase
Fall 1999
Instructor: David Valentine Wed 7:00-10:00pm (9/1/99 - 12/15/99)
Office Hours: by arrangement email: [email protected]
Course Description
Anthropologists have only recently come to look at homosexuality as a valid area of investigation. This mirrors a broader reluctance in anthropology to consider sexuality at all beyond discussions of kinship, motherhood, or gender roles. In this class, we will consider how studies of homosexualities cross culturally contributes to a broader understanding of gender and sexuality. But we will also consider how "homosexuality" itself as a category is complicated by these same studies.
Course Requirements
Your grade will be based on the following:
1. Class Participation: (10%) 2. Three Reaction Papers (60 %) 3. Final Paper (30%)
Attendance will be taken. A 70% attendance rate will be required or you will automatically fail the Class Participation component of the grade. There is no mid-term exam, and the final paper will be a take-home exercise. No one may enter the class more than ten minutes late.
Assigned Texts
The books are available for purchase at the university book store. As well as the books, there are a number of articles which are available in the library.
Blackwood, Evelyn and Saskia Wieringa (eds)
1999 Female desires: same-sex relations and transgender practices across cultures. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kulick, Don
1998 Travesti : sex, gender, and culture among Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lewin, Ellen
1993 Lesbian mothers: accounts of gender in American culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Newton, Esther
1979 [1972] Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shokeid, Moshe
1995 A gay synagogue in New York. New York: Columbia University Press.
PART I: SEXUALITY AND HOMOSEXUALITY IN ANTHROPOLOGY
September 8: Introduction to the course
September 15: (Homo)sexuality and anthropology(I)
Readings:
Weston, Kath
1993 Lesbian/Gay studies in the house of anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 22:339-369.
Vance, Carole
1991 Anthropology rediscovers sexuality: a theoretical comment. Social Science and Medicine 33(8):875- 84.
September 22: (Homo)sexuality in Anthropology (II)
Readings:
Blackwood, Evelyn and Saskia Wieringa
1999 Introduction In Female desires: same-sex relations and transgender practices across cultures. New York: Columbia University Press.
Löfström, Jan
1992 Sexuality at stake: the essentialist and constructionist approaches to sexuality in anthropology. Suomen Antropologi 17(3):13-27.
PART 2: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM AND ESSENTIALISM/THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY
September 29: The History of the History of Sexuality
Readings:
Weeks, Jeffrey
1981 Sex, politics, and society: the regulation of sexuality since 1800. London: Longman (Chps. 1, 2)
Katz, Jonathan Ned
1995 The invention of heterosexuality. New York: Dutton (Chps. 1, 2)
PART 3: IT LOOKS LIKE HOMOSEXUALITY, IT SMELLS LIKE HOMOSEXUALITY, BUT IS IT HOMOSEXUALITY? HOMOSEXUALITY IN A CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXT
October 6: Melanesia: "Homosexuality" or "Semen Practices"?
Readings:
Herdt, Gilbert (ed)
1984 Introduction in Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Elliston, Deborah A.
1995 Erotic Anthropology: 'Ritualized Homosexuality' in Melanesia and Beyond. American Ethnologist 22(4):848-867.
October 13: Southern Africa: The Difference a Border Makes
Readings:
Donham, Don
1998 Freeing South Africa: the "modernization" of male-male sexuality in Soweto. Cultural Anthropology 13(1):3-21
Aarmo, Margrete
1999 How homosexuality became "un-African": the case of Zimbabwe. In Female desires: same-sex relations and transgender practices across cultures. Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia Wieringa (eds.) Pp. 255-280. New York: Columbia University Press.
October 20: Latin America: The Political Contexts of Sexual Difference
Readings:
Lancaster, Roger N.
1995 "That we should all turn queer?" Homosexual stigma in the making of manhood and the breaking of a revolution in Nicaragua. in Conceiving sexuality: approaches to sex research in a postmodern world. John H. Gagnon and Richard G. Parker (eds). London: Routledge
Mogrovejo, Norma
1999 Sexual preference, the ugly duckling of feminist demands: the lesbian movement in Mexico. In Female desires: same-sex relations and transgender practices across cultures. Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia Wieringa (eds.) Pp. 308-332. New York: Columbia University Press.
PART 4: HOMOSEXUALITY AT "HOME"
October 27 : Heather's Two Mommies: Gay and Lesbian Kinship
Readings:
Lewin, Ellen
1993 Lesbian mothers: accounts of gender in American culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (Chapters 1,2,9)
Schneider, David M.
1997 Power of culture: notes on some aspects of gay and lesbian kinship in America today. Cultural Anthropology 12(2):270-274.
November 3: Drag Queens and Apple Pie: Sexuality, Gender, and Performance
Readings: Film: Paris is Burning
Newton, Esther
1979 [1972] Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
November 10: Gay and Jewish: Communities and Identities
Readings:
Shokeid, Moshe
1995 A gay synagogue in New York. New York: Columbia University Press.
(Chapters 1, 4, 6, 9)
PART 5: IS IT "GAY" OR IS IT "TRANSGENDER?"
November 17: Third Gender, Transgender, or Just Gender?
Readings:
Jacobs, Sue-Ellen, Wesley Thomas and Sabine Lang.
1997 Introduction in Two-spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. S. Jacobs, W. Thomas, and S. Lang (eds). Urbana: U. of Illinois Press.
Lang, Sabine
1997 Various kinds of two-spirit people: gender variance and homosexuality in Native American communities. In Two-spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. S. Jacobs, W. Thomas, and S. Lang (eds).Urbana: U. of Illinois Press.
November 24: THANKSGIVING RECESS
December 1: They've Got an Awful Lot of Gender in Brazil
Readings:
Kulick, Don
1998 Travesti : sex, gender, and culture among Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Selections)
December 8: What's "(Homo)sexuality" and What's "(Trans)gender?" Course Review
Readings:
Halberstam, Judith
1998 Transgender butch: butch/FTM border wars and the masculine continuum. GLQ 4(2):287-310.
December 15: FINAL PAPER DUE